Right now I wouldn’t want to be a distributor of small winery brands. One of the least-expected outcomes of the Federal Government’s introduction of the GST and the ill-conceived and so-called Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) is the massive incentives for wineries with wholesale sales of less than $300,000 per annum to distribute their wine themselves. At least 85% of Australian wineries would have wholesale sales of less than $300,000. The only way wineries can attract the WET rebate applicable to their operations is to sell their own wine directly to their own customers through the cellar door or mailing list. Recent statements by ATO personnel have revealed no grey area in this respect whatsover – a sale by or through an agent is NOT a direct sale and is therefore not able to attract the full WET rebate for sales less than $300,000, which would make them entirely exempt. The WET rebate falls away on a declining scale to a value of $580,000 wholesale sales, after which only a 15% rebate will be paid back by the states. How many small Australian wineries with sales of less than $300,000 wholesale value will have little choice but to dump their agents?
